


Extra Space

by SeeMaree



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Space Opera, Superpowers, Werewolf, Zombies in space, sort of like firefly, urban fantasy in space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-03-30 11:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13950408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeMaree/pseuds/SeeMaree
Summary: Katniss makes her living scavenging parts and cargo from ghost ships, space craft that have been abandoned and left adrift. It's not a glamorous life, but it makes ends meet, mostly.Her latest ghost ship isn't like the rest. There's rumors of some sort of disease killing everyone on board. And still, she feels strangely drawn to it.





	1. the ghost ship

I press my hand into the metal paneling beside my bunk to drag myself out of bed. The paint is worn away in a hand sort of shape, and I try to draw comfort from the familiarity of the cool metal under my palm.

My sister is waiting for me. “We’re here,” she says, and walks away, her long blonde braid slapping indignantly against her back.

I follow Prim along the corridor down the length of the ship, headed for the cockpit. And for a moment the dingy walls feel like they’re pressing in on me, and I take a few gasping breaths.

She stops and looks back at me.

“Get out of my head little sister,” I say.

She scowls. “I wouldn’t have to look if you’d just talk to me.”

“Have you considered that I don’t want you to know what I’m thinking?” That my mind is a mess of conflicting emotions that she doesn’t need to take on?

She grumbles a little and then turns back to climb up into the cockpit. I shake my head to clear it. What’s going on with me? I’m not claustrophobic, I’m the one who squeezes into tiny, tight spaces when we’re scabbing parts from abandoned space hulks. But for a second there I felt like I was suffocating. No wonder Prim touched my mind. I’m probably projecting my freak out.

She’s usually very respectful of my mental privacy, the same way she respects the curtain around my bunk. We’ve grown up in this 2,000-square-foot ship, and we both try very hard not to overstep. That she touched my mind without permission just shows how frightening this situation is to her.

I hurry to catch up to her, but she’s already sliding into the copilot seat. There’s only two seats, so I’m stuck hovering behind. Haymitch, our uncle, is already in the pilot seat.

I stoop a little to get a better view of the target.

The ship is massive. It hangs in space like a giant silvery coin. One of the newer combined cargo and passenger ships, designed with an outer ring of passenger berths leaving the center an enormous cargo hold. It’s got to have a circumference of five or six miles.

“My God,” Prim hisses. “What happened to take out a ship that large?”

Haymitch shrugs. “Does it matter? All I care is that we’re here first.”

I chew on my lip, still uncertain about the push-me-pull-you feelings this job is giving me. “What if the rumors are true? That it was some sort of virus?”

“Then put on a full suit, with breathing gear. Do I have to explain everything?”

“Are you kidding with me? You’re fine with sending your niece out to scavenge a plague ship? Bastard.” Prim jumps up and slips past me, ignoring my pleading look.

I know why she’s angry. It’s the same reason I’m scared. This ship had quarantine buoys surrounding it, and the stories we’ve been hearing are wild. Something happened that has everyone from the central government to other scabbers running scared. It says something that we are the only scavengers here. But Haymitch is getting impatient, and I know if I don’t go I’ll have a fight on my hands. I need to decide now.

“I don’t see you rushing off to suit up,” I say, the acid of it biting my tongue. Haymitch would never risk himself if he could send one his kids instead. But I can’t stop myself from goading him. Just to see.

“You’re the one with the abilities for this, girl. You know that.”

Ah yes, the old ‘it’s not my ability’ excuse.

We’re chameleons. Not actual lizards of course, but it’s what we call our sort of Extraordinary. The family heritage. We can sense, mirror, and copy in ways that ordinary humans can’t. 

My uncle can be what you want him to be to make you trust him. He’s a the ultimate grifter, basically. He sees everyone around him as marks to be manipulated. Even me and Prim. Although we’re both immune to his powers. Which means we’re the only people in the universe to know what a giant ass he is.

Prim can touch minds, sense what people are thinking. It’s a painful and complicated ability, and it drives her further inside herself than is healthy, as far as I’m concerned.  
And then there’s me. There’s a reason why I get to go in alone to scout out these ghost ships we want to scab. Because, of the three of us, I’m the only one who’s primarily a physical chameleon. I can out run and outfight almost anyone because I can mimic anything they can do.

People like us have always lived a hidden or outcast existence, and my family is no different. Scabbing has been our business as long as I can remember. Find a ghost ship, one that’s been cataclysmically damaged or abandoned, and slip on board and take the most valuable things we can find. Parts, cargo, whatever. Usually the only risk is situational. If it’s lost atmosphere and I get snagged on something and tear my suit, or if we encounter other scabbers (although they tend to stay away from us— we’re creepy— on purpose.)  
But this plague. This is an unknown quantity. Prim voted against doing this. And I appreciate that. She voted no because she loves me and considered it too risky.

Haymitch considers it an acceptable risk. He’s an ass, but I agree. Mostly because some instinct is pulling me toward that giant death disc.

But, still looking at that huge ship, I feel a gut-wrenching terror. It physically cramps up my stomach for a moment and I curl into myself.

Haymitch cuts me a few sidelong glances. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

His deep familial concern is heartwarming. Still, I nod and slide out of the seat. I go back to the airlock and start suiting up.

Prim finds me there. “Something’s different about this one,” she says. She cuts her eyes back toward the cockpit as if she thinks Haymitch might be eavesdropping. She leans in closer. “Someone is still alive over there.”

“Hell. No. No way. Haymitch did scans. You saw. The only thing alive over there is some animals. Probably the usual cats and rats.”

“I know what I sense.” Another look over her shoulder. “I think you sense it too. You’ve been off— with your abilities. You keep swiping me with feels, and they’re all bad.”

I bite my lip. My sister is my best, and in many ways only, friend. She knows me better than anyone. And I trust her instincts.

I’m feeling weird things. Fears when I’m perfectly safe. Like that moment of random claustrophobia a few minutes ago. “You think these weird feelings are because I’m picking up something from someone on that ship? But I don’t work that way.”

We’re huddled up close, both whispering now.

She puts his hand on my forehead. “Can I look?”

I sigh. “Sure.” It’s not as if there’s much in there she doesn’t already know. It’s not even as if I’ve got any decent sexual escapades to traumatize her with.

She wraps his arms around me, seeking skin contact, and I lean in, craving the comfort. She’s been through a major growth spurt in the last year or so, and she’s suddenly a lot taller than me. It’s comforting to be enveloped like this. Our breathing synchronizes, and I feel her in my head. It’s always that way. She says most people can’t feel her doing it, but I guess on some level it’s a part of my abilities too. But I can’t touch other people’s minds like she does.

Prim pulls away gasping.

“What!” I’ve never seen her like this after being in my head.

“He’s calling out to you to save him.”

We both look out the porthole at the giant ship.

“He? And why me and not you? This isn’t my ability.”

“You’re still a chameleon. And he’s projecting emotions, not thoughts. You are more attuned to that.”

“Why hasn’t he sent out regular distress calls then?”

Prim grasps my shoulders and presses her forehead against mine. “Perhaps he has. Maybe they’re being blocked. You know it doesn’t matter. You have to find him. He’s terrified. When you get over there, forget about parts. Follow your gut and find him.”

“What if he’s contagious? I can’t bring that back here.”

“I’ll set up containment while you’re gone.”

I shake my head. I can’t do this. Prim’s still basically a kid, and she’s got a little of that childlike optimism left in her. But he must see that this a terrible idea. I can’t bring that mysterious plague back onto our ship and and risk my family.

“Katniss, please. He’s still alive and everyone else is dead. And he’s broadcasting. He’s like us. Maybe that made him immune.”

“Or he’s the carrier.”

Another pulse of fear, not my own, hits me. And I know I have to at least find him. If he’s infected, then I’ll just have to put him out of his misery. But what if he’s not? It’s been a long time since I’ve met a new Extra. And he’s managed to survive this long. Can I really just abandon him?

“Haymitch is going to kill us.”

Prim grins. Damn her soft heart. “Turn around and let me braid your hair up,” she says. “It’s all coming down.”

I turn and let her wind my hair into a practical braid and twist it up and out of the way. I mentally review the layout of the ship I’m about to breach. It’s a cargo ship, so there could be a minimal crew, potentially even living and working on one part of the ship. Okay, so it’s not beyond possibility that this person has managed to confine himself to a different non-infected section.

But most likely there’s passengers. People too poor to shell out for a berth on a fast ship, or who are willing to spend months of travel time to get where they’re going at a cut-price rate.

And I’m procrastinating.

I need to move fast. I know my uncle is going to flip out if I bring someone from a ghost ship back here, so I have to get to this guy and make a decision before Haymitch starts to wonder what’s going on. Of course Prim is entirely capable of locking Haymitch out of all the systems. I still don’t want to leave her to deal with it on her own.

I finish dressing in a my full-exposure suit. It won’t save me in open space of course, but it will protect me from just about everything else, including mid level radiation and airborne and contact contaminants. I strap on my tool pouches (the light set, not a good idea to weigh myself down in an unknown environment) and, lastly, my weapons. I don’t carry much of those either. Just a gun and a knife. I mostly rely on my agility and speed to get out of danger.

My heart is pounding as a seal is made with the porthole, and I wait while the systems check the atmosphere on the other side. If I have to I can put on my spacesuit, but I’m betting there’s still atmosphere, since there’s obviously at least one person still alive over there.

The pad beeps. The air quality isn’t great, but it’s not showing any serious contaminants. At least not any of the ones we test for. The artificial gravity is a bit iffy in a few places, but again, not dangerously so. I still slide my helmet on and open the air valve. I have two hours of air. Plenty of time to recon and get back here.

I click on my com. “It all looks good. I’m heading in.”

“Okay. Keep me updated,” Prim replies.

Usually it’s Haymitch on the com with me. I wonder what Prim told him.

“Thanks,” I say.

I can feel the mysterious man’s feelings more clearly now that I know what’s going on. He’s still afraid, and claustrophobic. That’s good. It means he’s not in any sort of immediate danger. Perhaps he’s hidden himself in some sort of small, confined space.

I step through the small airlock and into a wide loading dock area and look around. I’m dreading the bodies. Because in this sort of situation there’s almost inevitably bodies.

At first I see nothing. The place looks normal, except for the complete lack of human activity. That’s good, right? Maybe they all died peacefully in their rooms where I won’t have to see them. Of course Haymitch will probably want to look for valuables in there, but that’s his deal.

I take the small human sized door to the left of the big cargo bay doors and take the few turns into the living spaces at a jog. “Am I heading in the right direction?” I ask Prim.

“As far as I can tell. You should be able to sense him better than me though.”

“And you’ve had more practice.”

She makes a humming sound, which I take to mean that I should keep following the gut-wrenching fear vibes. Lovely.

“You know,” she adds, always chatty on the com, “there is another story about why you’d be able to suddenly feel another person’s emotions.”

I don’t get it for a moment. And then I laugh. “Yeah right, my soulmate has called me across a billion kilometers of space to rescue him from a plague ghost ship.”

“You are supposed to be able to sense if the other is in distress.”

“Where the hell was he last year when I got stabbed, then?”

Prim chuckles.

It’s the odd squelching underfoot that is the first sign something is off. I look down, and I can’t quite make out what’s spilled all over the floor. And spattered on the walls, now that I look more closely.

“Oh God.”

“What?” Prim demands.

I choke back bile— the only thing saving me from splattering the inside of my helmet with puke is the pure, clean air I’m breathing. I can only imagine what this place smells like.

“They didn’t get sick— they were slaughtered. There’s… Oh damn. There’s blood and… other stuff…”

“Get out.”

I turn to run. To get out of this abattoir. But I can still feel him. Feel his rising terror.

“Someone slaughtered people here and he’s terrified. They must be after him. I can’t— I can’t…”

Prim gasps. “I changed my mind. Get out of there! Leave him. Please, sister. I can’t lose you. You’re not invincible.”

I turn off my com. I know I’m being stupid, but I’ve spent too much of my life being trained to follow my instincts. And my instincts are screaming that something, someone, vital to me is here and in danger. I cannot leave. If I’m doing this crazy thing I have to focus, and I have be calm. If there’s a killer, or most likely a group of killers, roaming these halls, then I have to be silent. Hopefully our little ship docking has gone unnoticed. Hopefully I can be in and out without anyone the wiser. And I say Prim is the idealistic one.

I start moving at a ground-eating run, my soft soled boots striking almost soundlessly on the spongy floor. I only stop to peer around corners.

I’ve been moving steadily closer to him for a few minutes when it strikes me. Where are the bodies? There’s an almost unbearable amount of carnage around me, but it’s all mostly… ugh… fluids. Has this ship been overrun by cannibals? You hear stories about how deep space effects some people. But surely…

I get my answer as I peer around the next corner.

They’re all gathered in a single, writhing mass, maybe a hundred or so of them. On first look they appear to be human, but as I watch it’s obvious that they’ve become something not human. Something horrifyingly wrong. They’re mindlessly battering themselves against the walls. No. it’s not mindless. There’s a door, a simple cabin door that seems to be the focus of their attention, and they are determined to get inside it.

I turn my com back on. “Prim,” I whisper. “It’s like they’ve all ran mad. There’s like a hundred people trying to get to him.”

“What?”

He’s in there. The guy is obviously on the other side of that wall, and he’s gathered every— creature— every— zombie on the ship. Because against all reason that’s what they look like. Zombies. I’ve seen it in movies often enough.

I freeze for a moment, stunned by the sheer injustice of all of this. Because I’m suddenly convinced that Prim is right. That the man trapped in there is my soulmate. I’ve heard all the old stories about what it’s like to find your soulmate. It’s something of a dream for my kind. We live our lives so marginalized by society. The possibility of a soulmate has always felt like a balancing of that. That we get to have this one person who is almost magically compatible. I’m pragmatic. I know the realities. Despite the the stories about how you’ll be led to that one true person, it had always sounded more like a fairy tale than something that could really happen.

But I have been led to him. And I can’t reach him, I can’t save him without dying myself. I’m fast. More than fast. But even I can’t fight my way through a hundred zombies, get through that door, retrieve a man who is no doubt traumatized and possibly injured, and then fight my way back out and get us both safely back to my ship.

It’s impossible.

I let out a pained sound.

And then three things happen.

As one the zombies all turn and look at me.

“Big sister, you okay?” Prim asks on the com. And I am not okay at all. Because then they don’t just look. Some sort of thrill runs through the pack of them and whatever hive mind they have decides I’m a far better target. They start coming for me.

And then the third and most important thing, happens. As the zombie pack holding down the door breaks apart and starts moving toward me the door swings open. And an animal comes shooting out from between them. It races past me and then circles back, nudging and nipping at me. Like it’s trying to herd me.

And that— even more than facing down for real zombies— shocks me. Because as soon as it— he— touches me I know. This dog is my soulmate.

My soulmate is an animal.

He whines, and I snap out of my freeze. A hundred zombies are bearing down on me.

I start to run opening up to my full speed, and the dog keeps pace with me.

Okay. Well I guess I’ll survive now and figure out the dog soulmate later.

“Not okay,” I say into my com. “We’re coming in hot. Make sure you have double containment set up and be ready to detach immediately.”

“So you’ve got him?”

I look over at my companion. “It’s me and a dog,” I gasp out. “Let us both through and then shut the hatch.”

I’m not as frightened as I should be. I mean, I’m tearing down a narrow corridor with no safe exits, being pursued by a pack of zombies. If there’s a second pack coming from the other direction we’re screwed. But I can’t help feeling a ridiculous sense of euphoria.

He’s here. Running alongside me. Keeping up with me! Him being an animal seems like a minor detail. I know logically that some of this is just the emotions he’s sharing with me. His stupid doggy joy from running alongside me.

Damn. I thought finding my soulmate would mean I’d get laid. Instead I get a pet.

But we’re fast enough to draw a safe distance ahead of the mob in the few minutes it takes us to run back to the latch point, and I see Prim on the far side of the airlock. I sense her surprise when she sees there’s an actual dog running alongside me, and then we’re through and into the airlock and the doors are closing behind us.

“Detach, Detach!” I gasp out.

I raise my head from where I’ve collapsed on the floor, double-checking that Prim has done what I asked. Not that I doubt her. I just need to see us breaking that connection. The faces of the zombies are visible on the other side. They start tearing at the vent doors on their side. Maybe they’ll vent themselves to space and save us all some trouble.

“You weren’t kidding about coming in hot,” Prim chokes out. She’s on the other side of the airlock, watching through the porthole.

I’ve always tried to shield her from the monsters of this universe. I can’t imagine what her empathic abilities are delivering up from those creatures. But the look of sheer horror on her face gives a hint of it. “Zombies?” she whispers.

After a few moments she looks back at me. “Okay, so about this dog… Oh hell no.”

I flop over to see what my stupid soulmate dog is doing and flinch back in shock.

Because it’s not a dog anymore. It’s a filthy, shivering naked man curled into a fetal ball.

“I’m a wolf, actually,” he says, and then faints.


	2. Soulmates?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dog (wolf) boy seems nice. And bizarrely hot. But there's some rather more pressing concerns

“I’m a wolf, actually,” he says, and then faints.

He’s out. Completely unconscious. The man that was a dog (wolf according to him anyway) a few moments ago looks almost dead. I scramble over to him, pulling off my helmet. 

My heart rate had started to return to normal after that frantic sprint. But now it picks up again. I yank off my glove and press my fingers to his neck. I’ve always been bad at this, often not being able to find a pulse on someone who’s awake and looking at me. But on him I find it almost immediately. The gentle beat under my fingertips is faint and probably too slow. But he’s not dead.

I roll him onto his back and start checking him for injuries. His pale skin is absolutely filthy, covered with smears of substances that I’d rather not know the origins of. But his skin is remarkably smooth. No scars or abrasions at all. Not even the kind you pick up in everyday life, let alone what I’d expect from what he’s just been living.  
He’s a mess. He’s emaciated, his ribs and hipbones are far too visible, his face is covered with a scrubby beard. And he smells horrible. Like he hasn’t washed himself in weeks. 

But I can see what he could be. 

Perhaps it’s the soulmate link. Is it forcing me to see him as attractive, despite the reality in front of me? I can’t help imagine what he looked like before this. Small and lean and agile. Just my type. Instead of what he is now. Damaged. Young. Fragile.

“Are you seriously ogling an unconscious guy? Ugh.”

I look over at the round window into the main body of the ship. Prim is still there watching me.

“I’m checking him for injuries.”

“Yeah sure. Injuries.”

“Have you got the secondary quarantine set up?”

“Yep all ready to go. I’ve fobbed Haymitch off, he agreed about the quarantine considering what you saw over there, but I didn’t tell him about your friend. I’d advise you get him hosed down and out of that airlock asap.”

“Right.” Focus. “Okay, go forward, lock the hatch down and let me know when you’re clear.”

I expect her to protest locking her sister out of the forward sections of the ship. But she saw those zombie creatures. She probably heard their thoughts, or whatever horrible parody of thought they have. No one would risk that.

I grab a hand sprayer off the wall and start showering the man with Sanichem, the nasty green chemical that supposedly will kill off any toxins or viruses. Of course whatever was going on on that ship is brand new, so who knows if it’s gonna work. I’m still minimizing the risk.

He yelps as the cold fluid hits him, leaping into wakefulness with an aggression that betrays a dangerous past.

I dodge back, but he freezes in his attack stance and stares at me. “You’re real?”

I grin. Stupid hormones. “Yeah. I’m real. Hold still. I need to do decon before we go inside.”

He obeys, spreading his arms and legs wide as I circle him, utterly un-self conscious of his nudity. Living on cramped ships means most people I know are relatively comfortable naked, but this guy takes it to another level. It’s as if he’s forgotten he’s completely bare and vulnerable.

He bends his head so I can scrub the chemical through his greasy tangled hair. At least it’s fairly short.

He’s starting to shiver more violently, but we can’t skip this.

I hand him the sprayer and turn away to start stripping off my gear. I hesitate, feeling almost dared to be as casually naked as he is. But after a moment I leave on my underclothing. The technical fabric is no barrier to the chemical, and no matter how at ease he is, I’m not comfortable getting naked like this.

I shove all my gear into the sonic decon crate and switch it on, wishing we could use that for people. Instead I have to endure the Sanichem.

“Spray me down and we can get somewhere warmer,” I tell him.

He’s obviously familiar with this process, because he’s quick and efficient. I still flinch as the chemical hits my skin. It’s cold and while it doesn’t burn me it sure feels like it.

“Are there more people on board?” He asks

“Yeah, my uncle and sister. But don’t worry. They’ve locked us down for quarantine in the aft section. It’s all set up.”

“That’s fine. But you need to tell them to get the ship out of here, now. You aren’t the first ones to try to scab here, and as far as I can tell they have destroyers out there maintaining the quarantine. If they catch you this close then we’re all in big trouble.”

Wonderful.

“You hear that Prim?” I call out. No doubt she’s eavesdropping. She may have principles about invading other people’s minds, but she makes up for it by being a little sneak in every other way.

“On it,” her disembodied voice says. And within a few seconds I feel the moment of inertial pull before the dampeners even it out.

“Can you bend down a little?” The guy asks, the mundane request almost amusing after his dramatic pronouncement.

Is it really necessary to spray my hair? It was inside my helmet the entire time. I sigh and crouch, and his fingers gently unwind my braid. The sensation of his fingers in my hair is the same, yet entirely different from Prim’s. Damn. Is this what having a soul mate is? Lust at the simplest of touches?

He doesn’t linger, quickly unwinding my hair and spraying it down. Within minute he’s tapping me on the shoulder and hanging the sprayer back on it’s hook.

“Prim? You good? I’m ready.”

“Okay.”

The hatch slides open and we step into the more pleasant temperature and humidity controlled environment of the ship. The warmth is amazing.

I let him take the first shower. He stinks, and he’s still shaking from cold. Plus I don’t know how much more of him casually standing around naked I can take. I busy myself laying out a set of my clothes for him and reconstituting him a meal, while the Sanichem dries to an unpleasant crust on my skin and continues to drip from my hair.

He’s only gone a few minutes, and by the time I’ve washed myself he’s dressed and tearing into the food with all the table manners of, well, a wolf. The basic coveralls we all wear are baggy, and hell, I’ve already seen him naked, but there’s something so adorable about him with his now clean hair flopping in his face, and his newly shaven face and crap I am in so deep and I’ve barely even spoken to the guy. But he’s radiating contentment, and soulmate link means his happiness is my happiness. 

There’s nowhere to sit besides the floor. The living quarters are in the forward part of the ship. All we’ve got in this rear section is the sanitation rooms and storage. It’s configured with isolated air and water systems, so it can be used for containment, but comfortable it’s not. It’s lucky there’s even a bunk and food reconstituter.

I sit on the floor, leaning my back against the wall. He sits beside me and offers me some food from his tray. Which is incredibly sweet considering that he’s obviously starving and there’s plenty more food packs in the cupboards.

I take a small bite to be polite, but my stomach is still rolling from the horrors on the other ship, so I have no interest in eating. Instead I watch him. For all he’s cramming food down his throat at high speed he’s amazingly neat. No food is spilled or smeared across his face. He uses his utensils carefully. He doesn’t try to speak with his mouth full.

“So you like roast beef then?”

As if that reconstituted food really counts as beef. Still, he looks up at me and smiles.

“You have beautiful eyes,” I say, and his eyes widen and he turns away quickly. I want to hit myself. What sort of conversational opener is that? He does have amazingly eyes though. They transform his face from average to striking.

His throat works as he swallows quickly. “Sorry,” he mutters.

Sorry? Sorry for what? Calling me across the system to save him? I don’t think he did it on purpose. And so what if he did? I want him here with me. Whoever he is.

“What’s your name?” I ask, and his eyes flit up for a second, before disappearing beneath his lashes again.

“Peeta. Peeta Mellark.”

“Old world.”

“Yeah. I was born on earth, believe it or not. What about you?”

He’s finished the food and is setting the tray to the side, so I stick out my hand to shake. “I’m Katniss Aptar-Everdeen. Born on Aptar station.” As if that wasn’t obvious by my station designation name.

He takes my hand and he smiles, his eyes meeting mine again for a brief moment. I wonder if it’s an earth culture thing, avoiding direct eye contact, or perhaps he’s autistic. Whatever it is I can feel his discomfort. So I turn and face forward, resisting the desire to watch him.

“I’m guessing Prim is your sister, not your uncle?”

A sense of humor. Good. 

“Good guess. Haymitch is my uncle. It’s just the three of us.”

“And they’re okay with you bringing me on-board?”

I shrug. “Prim is. And Haymitch is probably going to try to vent you first chance he gets.”

Peeta tenses and I put my hand on his shoulder. “He’ll try. I won’t let him.”

“Why?” he whispers. “Why would you protect me? Why aren’t you afraid of me? You saw what I am. And you saw… what happened back there.”

The sadness and loneliness he’s feeling is such a massive pit, I could fall in and never find my way out.

I elbow him. I know he wasn’t the one who massacred those people, or infected them or whatever happened. I know it.

“We extras have to stick together, right? Just cause you’re a little more extra than most, no reason to be a jerk about it. If you infect me with that zombie thing I’ll be mad though.”

He shakes his head seriously. “No, I’m clean. It’s spread by body fluids as far as I could tell. Blood and saliva. You have to get it in an open wound. And they only went after humans. They weren’t interested in me as a wolf. So I just stayed a wolf as much as I could.”

“How soon will we know if we’re infected?”

“Fast. We’d already be showing symptoms.” he rubs his face. “I watched a few people go through it. It only takes about an hour.”

An hour. That’s horrifying. And this emotional link thing, I think we’re amplifying each other or something, I feel my horror and I think it’s making him upset, which is just freaking me out more. Damn. I need to get some lessons from Prim on creating mental barriers.

I throw my arm around his shoulders, hoping to comfort him a little, to ease that rebounding pain. And amazingly it works. It dampens immediately and he snuggles closer, leaning into me, although there’s a new undertone of… something I can’t quite distinguish.

“You still didn’t explain why you’re not scared of me. Everyone else who’s seen what I am…”

I rub his back. I think he’s been alone for a long time. To assume that even his own kind would reject him.

“Because we’re the same stupid. And besides the link…” I’m not sure how to talk about that. Should I ask straight out? ‘Hey do you think we’re soulmates?’ What if I doesn’t think that at all? What if empathic links is one of his abilities? Of course his echoing loneliness suggests otherwise, but still. He could simply not believe in soulmates. My friend Annie thinks it’s all rubbish.

“You’re a wolf too?” he asks.

“No, no, I’m a chameleon.”

“You can turn into a lizard?”

I snort a little at that. “Of course not. It’s just a title." It would be silly to take that literally. Except he introduced himself as a wolf. Which he literally is sometimes. "Oh sorry. I guess for you it’s not. I’ve never met anyone who can actually change form. It’s amazing.”

“Amazing huh? Nobody ever said that before.” He’s sounding drowsy and confused. This is probably the first time he’s relaxed in weeks.

I get him up and shove him into the single bunk we have back here. He’s asleep in seconds.

I consider joining him. It's the only bed and I’m bone achingly tired. But I look around at the mess of chemicals spattered on the floor. The airlock is probably worse, although it has a drainage grate. We can’t afford to waste the Sanichem. So I open the hatch to the airlock and use the hand blower to sweep as much as I can into the grate and down the drain for cleaning and reuse. I even wipe everything down with a damp rag, purely because I hate the smell of that stuff.

I’m so ready to climb into the bunk, helplessly anticipating how it will feel to sleep touching him (oh man I have it bad,) when I feel the ominous clunk of a navigation lock.

A larger more powerful ship has send a pulse that’s stalled our engines.

Peeta did warn us about this. 

The military has found us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so what do you do when your soulmate doesn't seem to understand you're soulmates (or perhaps he's just playing it cool??)  
> the experience of writing this thing is just weird. ask me about that if you're curious


	3. The Boarding Party of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breaking a military quarantine is punishable by death. So why are we all still alive?

The military has found us.

At least they’ve locked us down, and not just blown us out of existence.

Why on earth haven’t they?

:get in bed with him:

“What?” I say out loud.

:do it. It might save us:

Well, if Prim says so. Inside my brain. Obviously it must be important.

It’s not as if I’m not salivating to cuddle up with my now clean and nice smelling soul mate. So I obey my little sister. He’s never going to let me live this down.

Peeta is dead to the world, poor guy. He must be so unbelievably exhausted to have missed that clunk–silence that is one of the most ominous sounds you can hear on board a small independent ship like this. I’ve only heard it once before and woke me out of sound sleep.

The bunk is narrow. It’s not really enough space for even one person, let alone two, so I’m halfway on top of him. Honestly I don’t mind, but I can’t help worrying that he does. 

That somehow he doesn’t feel this same bond, that he doesn’t want me like I want him.

But this is survival, I know that from the tenor of Prim’s voice in my head. Enjoying it is incidental. I take a few slow breaths. Breaths full of the scent of his skin. I’m guessing that my racing heart isn’t what Prim wants here.

“Link me in,” I murmur. I know Prim is listening, mentally or via the ships intercom system, which she is always able to turn on, even if I turn it off. Annoying little sisters never fail like that.

The intercom crackles to life.

“–crossed quarantine line,” says an authoritative male voice in English. The accent is planetary. I’m not sure which exactly, but somewhere in the Nortingham system. The flat r sound is a giveaway.

Central Military supposedly recruits from all over. To represent the people they serve. The planet born ones at least. Citizenship for people born in space was a protracted battle, that was only resolved fifty years ago. There’s still a hierarchy of worth though. Planet born outranks us station born folk. And those unfortunate enough to be born aboard ships in open space, well their parents better have some strong alliances with either a planet or station otherwise the birth registrations tend to go astray. Even with parents as careless as mine made sure that Prim and I were both born on Aptar.

“I’m so sorry,” Haymitch is replying, also in English. “I was completely unaware. I assure you we’ve had no contact with any other ships in the 36 hours.” He’s in full schmooze zone. It doesn’t work as well over coms, but as far as I know something about the wavelengths of his voice just makes people happy and want to please him. It always feels a little icky to me, but hey, I rip off people’s moves and use it to kill them if I have to, so eh, we’re both icky really.

“I was just giving my niece a lesson in astronavigation. We had all the navigation software turned off.”  
Astronavigation? Well he pulled that one out of his butt.

“Excuse me?” the man says, suddenly losing much of his authoritativeness.

“Oh, I’m sure you folks have such excellent technology, and so many redundancies built into your systems you don’t need it, but on little ships like this we have to be able to navigate by the stars alone in emergency situations.”

Haymitch’s full of it. The only way our nav systems would go down would be if the engines were down, so we wouldn’t be navigating anywhere. We’d be dead in space. But the man on the com either doesn’t know enough about this class of ship to realize that, or he’s falling victim to Haymitch’s ability. Probably a bit of both. He does always say that half his ability is figuring out people. And that the best way to manipulate them is to push them off balance, away from information they’re sure of.

I’m starting to fade out into sleep, the combination of exhaustion and proximity to Peeta relaxing me in spite of the situation. And besides, they’ve detained us, not destroyed us. That means it’s a matter of negotiating what sort of bribe or concession we have to pay. And Haymitch is the go to guy for that stuff. There’s nothing for me to do.

I manage to stay awake long enough to hear that we’re going to be quarantined for four hours and then boarded.

A few hours. I guess Peeta was right when he said the disease comes on fast. I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m not going to die horribly. There’s no way they’d be taking the risk of coming on board if there was any chance at all of the contagion spreading.

But the next words jolt me into alertness again.

“Your crew manifest lists four crew members. Yet we’re only reading three thermal signatures.”

What? Four? Since when?

“Oh, yeah,” It’s Prim’s voice, smugly confident. “You should probably take a closer look at my sister. She’s in the aft cabin. If it’s anything like usual she and her boyfriend are in really close proximity.”

That little brat. She must have been listening to my entire conversation with Peeta, and added him to the crew manifest. Who knows exactly how she’s doctored the records, but now her insistence that I be in bed with Peeta makes more sense. She doesn’t want even a specter of a doubt about the length of Peeta’s stay on this ship. And he and I appearing to be involved in a long term relationship, and currently sleeping in each other’s arms, would go counter to anything they’d expect of someone we’d recently taken from a quarantined plague ship.

Even I’m surprised at myself for being so okay with it. I’m feeling pretty certain that he’s not carrying zombism. But even though he’s not infected he’s still not human. I’m used to being around powerful Extraordinaries. I’m considered one myself. But I’ve never seen anything like him.

And yet, yet none of that matters right now. He’s snuggling his face into the side of my neck, and adjusting his body around mine, and I feel safe and warm. Warm in a way that has nothing to do with lust and has everything to do with comfort. Warm in a– I never even knew how cold I was before– way.

I snuggle closer, and smile. So far having a soul mate is amazing.

—-

I’m woken by the thumps and clangs of another ship docking and making a seal with the airlock a few feet from my bunk.

:act normal:

Why thank you Prim. Yes, it is absolutely normal for me to wake up in the arms of a stranger while the Central Military are boarding us. Yes indeed. I shall certainly act like all of this is normal.

I shake Peeta, who is still sleeping soundly. Poor guy. I bet he needs to sleep around the clock, and all he got was four hours.

He can sleep when we’re all not dead.

His eyes snap open and he stares at me in shock. Blue. His eyes are blue. An odd sensation ripples down my spine.

“I’m still real,” I say, feeling shy.

He shakes his head as if he’s trying to arrange it’s contents into a more coherent format.

I slide out of the bunk and turn to wait for him.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“We got held up by the military. I guess they had us wait out a quarantine period, and now they’re coming on board to check things over in person.”

“What about–”

I shake my head, cutting him off. Who knows if they’re listening. I’ve heard things about the technology the military has, that enables them to eavesdrop across empty space, let alone when they’ve made a full docking seal.

“I’m sure all they want is to double check that all four of us are healthy. Then we can get to Aptar, okay?”

He still looks confused, but he nods and smiles. I’m confident that Prim can push information into his head if needed.

The important for quarantine locked hatch slides open. Prim comes through and hugs me, followed by Haymitch, who glares daggers. I know this situation with Peeta is not settled. But survival comes first. If the military finds out that we boarded that ship, and that Peeta was on there for who knows how long then we’re all dead.

We line up, spaced a meter apart, hands loose and visible at our sides, as far away from the walls and fixtures as we can manage. Military is known to be trigger happy. No one wants to be an accident.

As the airlock door slides open I look over at Peeta. He’s facing forward, ignoring me. He rolls his shoulders back and lifts his chin. The guy that up until now looked about as threatening as a puppy suddenly feels dangerous. I can still feel his emotions and he’s just as scared as the rest of us. But there’s something else there. I’m still uncertain about what he thinks about the soulmate link, but I’m certain that if this comes down to a fight he will not only have my back, he’ll be lethal.

Before I can think too hard about what that means the airlock slides open and I’m face to face with people with guns.

A squad of eight lines up opposite us. All male. Lovely. One of those squads. And two of them for each one of us. Nice to know we’re being taken seriously. Or it could be that they want to be prepared in case we’re harboring some of those zombie creatures.

The stand, assessing us for a moment. Or perhaps their slow brains need that time to count to four. Yes. We are all here. No. None of us are zombies.

On some silent command four of them move away, presumably searching the ship. Luckily they’re not going to find anything. While we frequently do have cargo on board that’s not entirely legal we’re currently empty. The only thing I brought back from that ghost ship was Peeta, and Prim has already worked her data magic on that little problem.

I stare down the four we have left. I could take them. It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if we took out all eight we’d still have a shipful more to take on. Plus they’re nervy, on edge. They know about the zombies. But they have the cockiness that big guns give a boy. And they are boys, all of them not much more than teenagers.

They dehumanize us the best way boys like that know how. Sexual objectification. Somehow despite the baggy coveralls they all seem to be able to look me, Peeta, and ugh, even Prim (she’s 15!) as if we’re naked objects delivered up for their entertainment. Apparently Haymitch is too old for this kind of diminishment. He always misses out on the good stuff.

I can’t help but twitch a little, just to see them flinch, to remind them that they don’t know what I’m capable of. Even if I can’t actually show my abilities. I know as well as everyone else that our best chance out of this is Haymitch’s glib tongue. I hate relying on that.

For thirty seconds or so we stand there and stare at each other while the rest of the squad finishes their search. Lucky it’s a small ship. I can imagine how boring this would get if we had a large storied vessel.

When the others return they com an all clear, and finally someone with authority comes through the airlock.

I assume this is the man in charge. The one Haymitch spoke to earlier. He’s surprisingly young. Not much older than my twenty five earth years. And he’s only a lieutenant? or maybe lower. I’m not too clear on the insignias on his uniform. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad that we’ve been caught by what I’m guessing is a small, less important vessel. Haymitch straightens and pastes an ingratiating smile on his face, but the Junior Lieutenant (??) doesn’t even glance his way. Instead he comes to a stop in front of Peeta. His predatory look is quite different to the way his soldiers were looking at us a few moments ago. It’s cold and assessing.

“Peeta Mellark. Do you know how many people are looking for you?”

Peeta’s face stays impassive, but his fear ratchets up a notch. “I’m not sure why I should care. I haven’t broken any laws.” That’s a lie, but the delivery is perfect.

“You should care. There’s quite the reward out on you. And not everyone looking to collect it are entirely honest.” His eyes drift to me, un-subtly hinting that I am such an unscrupulous person.

Ha. If only he knew, both how incredibly unscrupulous I am and how smittenly committed I am to Peeta’s health and welfare.

Peeta still looks impassive. If I wasn’t already madly crushing on him I’d be done in by his ability to be scared to death while looking supremely bored. “I suppose you’re here to collect on the bounty?” He says. “How much is my mother offering these days?”

The Jr Lieutenant smiles and runs his hand through his greasy hair. “More than enough that I convicted the boys here to delay their shore leave a few hours so we could collect you.” He shifts his body, angling himself to block eye contact between me and Peeta. “Why don’t you join us on board? We can offer you far more comfortable accommodations.”

“I’m sure, but I’d rather stay here.”

“I’m going to have to insist.”

And it clicks. Usually I can read intentions in body language like people are shouting. But this guy. He’s lying about so much stuff. But he’s explained enough now for me to put it together.

We’ve been picked up by a small transport carrying a squad to shore leave. It’s why the officer in charge is so young and such a low rank. The only reason we’re not currently a debris field is Peeta. What ever bounty his family has out on him is so large that the whole squad of them was willing to betray what I’m assuming is a standing order to destroy any ship violating the quarantine line. But as soon as Peeta is off this ship we’re particles.

Obviously I can’t let them take him.

:they’re going to blow the ship:

Thank’s Prim. I’m so glad she’s keeping up.

:they placed charges - don’t let them take Peeta off this ship:

Okay that’s more than I expected, but still. I know. Peeta leaves, we all die

And this is probably the crush speaking, because while there’s probably plenty of excellent ways to stop them from removing him from our ship in my panic I can only think of one.

“Él es mi familia.” I yell out. “Él es reclamado por Aptar.”

This may the stupidest idea I’ve ever had. What if Peeta counters my claim on him? I still can’t see his face. Hopefully he’s at least keeping up his stone face.

The lieutenant turns slowly, his previously smarmy expression turning hard.

“Are you saying that you and Mr. Mellark are married? And he’s choosing citizenship on a… station? Because I’d say I have records stating otherwise.”

Crap. It’s not like I can claim soulmate bonding even though if we were on Aptar and we both claimed each other it would be considered a superior bond to legal marriage.

And then Peeta steps around him and takes my hand. “Betrothed. We’re planning on having the official ceremony once we get to Aptar.”

The lieutenant clenches his teeth. He knows he’s screwed. I can tell from his body language that he’s considering cutting his losses and just killing us all.

Despite the ridiculous complexity of the treaties and contracts between the planetary systems and the stations there’s one thing everyone knows. When you marry you can choose to be claimed by your spouses home world, or station. Of course it’s ridiculous to think that Peeta, who was born on freaking Earth would chose to change his citizenship to a station. Except it’s Aptar. Even the military know there’s something special about Aptar, even if they don’t know it’s the home of any Extra that can manage it.

If he separates me and Peeta now and he leaves Peeta alive (which I’m assuming he has to to collect the bounty) then he’d be signing himself up for a legal nightmare. Especially if Peeta’s family is as wealthy as it appears.

We’re at an impasse, best broken by making sure this whole thing never happened.

I squeeze Peeta’s hand and hope that he has a god he’s praying to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, I mentioned a reply to the comments on the last chapter, but I figured that I should put it here too.
> 
> I started this fic as an original serial on my tumblr mareebrittenford.tumblr.com But it was sort of a flop so I decided to bring it over here as a fic. But if you'd like to check out any of my original writing head over and take a look at my tumblr. I've got quite a few short stories posted and there's links to my novels.
> 
> Also I'm still posting this story there in it's original form, (so don't feel confused!) because a few people are following it.


	4. Welcome to Aptar, Gem Among the Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lyse and her crew make it home to Aptar station. But is that really safety?

Despite the ridiculous complexity of the treaties and contracts between the planetary systems and the stations there’s one thing everyone knows. When you marry you can choose to be claimed by your spouses home world, or station. Of course it’s ridiculous to think that Peeta, who was born on freaking Earth would chose to change his citizenship to a station. Except it’s Aptar. Even the military know there’s something special about Aptar, even if they don’t know it’s the home of any Extra that can manage it.

If he separates me and Peeta now and he leaves Peeta alive (which I’m assuming he has to to collect the bounty) then he’d be signing himself up for a legal nightmare. Especially if Peeta’s family is as wealthy as it appears.

We’re at an impasse, best broken by making sure this whole thing never happened.

I squeeze Peeta’s hand and hope that he has a god he’s praying to.

“Say, I have a great idea!” Haymitch says brightly.

Finally he decides to get involved. The way his voice grates against my nerves means he’s dialed his ability up to maximum. He can’t charm me and Prim, but the use of his abilities still jar my senses some how.

The officer turns slowly, almost as if he’s fighting it. But in the end he can’t resist the compulsion. Haymitch beams at him.

“Have you fellows ever had the pleasure of visiting Aptar Station? It’s not called the gem among the stars for nothing! I assure you, it’s the best place in the galaxy for some young men like yourselves to spend your precious shore leave.”

The officer blinks, probably confused because so much charisma is being laid on but Haymitch hasn’t asked him to do anything yet. “I have heard it’s exotic.”

Save me please from being exotic. But I paste a smile on, prepared to play my part in the little scene Haymitch is playing out.

“Indeed it is! And since you’re going that way, perhaps you could give us a wake ride? And perhaps on the way you could contact young Peeta’s family, and they could meet us on Aptar and we can all raise a glass together to celebrate my niece's wedding.”

It’s an excellent solution. Probably one that the officer would have agreed to even without the ridiculous amount of power Haymitch is laying into his speech.

There’s only one flaw with this solution.

There might not be a way I can get out of this without actually marrying Peeta.

It doesn’t worry me nearly as much as it should. He’s my soulmate, so it’s probably inevitable that I make some sort of formal bond contract with him eventually, but I would like to have at least one private conversation with the guy before I get tied to him for life.

I’m fairly sure that Haymitch’s devious brain could’ve come up with a solution where I had a little more flexibility at least on the timeline. But I have no doubt he’s honed in on what to him would be the most salient point of the entire encounter. The money.

Peeta’s family has posted such a large reward for his safe return that instead of destroying our ship an entire squad of soldiers and their commanding officer have decided to ignore their orders and risk zombie contact for the chance of collecting it.

Peeta’s rich. And my uncle wants to get as close to that money as he can. Even selling his own niece out for it.

—-

The flight to Aptar, which would’ve taken us several days under our own power is accomplished in a matter of six hours riding the wake of the more powerful ship.

I have a hundred questions whirling around in my head, but no chance to ask them. The officer who I now know to be Jr Lieutenant Taylor has left two soldiers on board with us. Probably so they can remove the explosive charges they placed earlier– which I appreciate– but they have a dampening effect on conversation. All the questions I want to ask Peeta can’t be asked when there’s any possibility of being overheard. Because of course as his betrothed I should already know all about him.

And wake riding always makes me nervous. Yes it’s fast, but it also requires giving over control to the lead ship. Full navigational coordination is vital to make it work. The other ship would be in just as much trouble as us if they mis-navigated. But I still don’t like the loss of control.

I spend most of the trip in a tense silence watching Peeta eat. And boy does he eat. You’d think that the dehydrated meal packs he’s chowing down were the most delicious food ever created.

His ratcheting anxiety feeds into mine.

By the time we drop out of transitional space near Aptar I’m wound to a blade edge of tension, ready to snap at anything.

But the sight of my home station soothes me a little. I always love view coming up on Aptar. Seeing it’s sparkling silhouette hanging in space always gives me a twist in my heart. Not just because it’s my home and one the places I feel safest in the galaxy, but because it’s beautiful.

When humans first began to live in space– not just visit for short trips– a need was seen for permanent way stations. They were built in the most efficient way possible. Hideous boxy things created by stitching together a few freighters and then building them out into permanent habitation. Ugly on the outside, depressed on the inside. I’ve heard the suicide rate among long term residents is ridiculously high. Whispers of course. Most of them are owned by large corporations that tend to hush up that sort of information.

Aptar is completely different. Our founder, the first Premier Hawthorne, was a spatial, and he designed the place after extensive study of aesthetics, architecture and everything that was then theorized about what humans need to thrive in a nonplanetary environment.

“Wow,” Peeta gasps. I glance over at the two soldiers and they’re gaping too. I guess we’ve got three newcomers.

“Pretty amazing huh?” I whisper, tugging Peeta a little closer to a porthole window.

I’ve heard Aptar referred to as dew covered spider web floating in space, mostly by planet born types. I can’t see it. Prim says it’s because their eyes aren’t used to distinguishing the subtle tones of black on black that you get used to in deep space. Or perhaps they spend a lot of time looking at spiders when they’re on planets.

To me it looks like some friendly tentacled creature, happy and alive in the depths of space, it’s many slender arms sparkling with pinpoints of light. And it’s reaching out to welcome us home.

The CM crew transport tows us into the main dock, instead of our own private berth where we’d usually head, but at least we’ve made it here. I’m home and I’m safe.

As soon as we enter step off the ship I can smell the change in the air. Ship bound air always smells stale compared to this. Even here in the main customs area, which mostly smells like grease, fuel exhaust, and travel worn bodies there’s still that warmer texture to the air and the shadow of a taste of green things growing.

The military are held up at customs. None of them seem to speak spanish, so they need an official translator. Peeta is also held up. The Jr Lieutenant is claiming he’s their prisoner, but of course they have no proof, and he has no identification with him, having arrived on our ship as a wolf. He’d probably have to sit there for hours while his identity was certified and his status was sorted out, so I call in a few favors and use my connections. I claim personal responsibility for him and and demand to speak to the Premier privately. It’s not something I’ve ever done before, so it gets things moving rather quickly.

Haymitch has disappeared, probably trying to avoid fallout from so blatantly manipulating a military officer, but Prim hovers as I wait for my escort.

“Go home Prim. Say hi to your mom for me.”

I know she doesn’t want to, she wants to stick around and see what happens. But there’s too much that’s dangerous and uncertain going on here. I want her well out of it.

She groans, but nods. “I’m coming by your place later to find out what’s going on though.”

It only takes a few minutes for the escort to show. It’s the Premier’s personal assistant, and grandson, Rory. He’s a few years older than me, but we basically grew up together. Sending him means I’m not in trouble. Yet.

“Hey Katniss,” he says. “What have you got yourself mixed up in this time?” His eyes flick over Peeta curiously, but he knows better than to ask for details before his grandmother has gotten all the information first.

“Oh this and that, you know how it is. How’s the family?”

“Same old same old. My brother is still imagining that one of these days you’re going to give up on adventuring and come home and marry him.”

Amusingly Peeta slides his hand into mine. Okay. So he’s not completely against this whole fake betrothal thing. That’s good. Because with how things are rolling there’s a fairly high chance of it turning into a real contract within days.

Rory doesn’t miss the gesture, and his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. I should introduce Peeta, but I can’t explain anything until Seeder gets first crack at this information.

“I’ll explain everything, later, okay?” I hedge. We both know that ‘everything’ is really ‘everything I’m allowed to tell you.’

But he nods and grins. “I cannot wait to see my brother’s face.”

“You’re evil.”

“Nope. I just love saying ‘I told you so.’

I do not want to think about Gale and his expectations right now. I have enough to worry about.

We’re lead through the twisting maze that surrounds the government offices. A security measure. And a show of wealth and power. I just think it’s beautiful. The promise of plants and water that I could taste at the entry port is fulfilled as the smells of earth and flowers and herbs roll over me. The lighting is all designed to simulate earth sunlight, and there’s gardens and fountains everywhere. People say it’s like being in a particularly beautiful old earth city. I can’t help reaching out and plucking a bright red geranium from a window box, and inhaling the bright green scent of it.

Rory just shakes his head and smiles.

I smirk. “Sorry, was that one of yours?” The apartments in this section are far beyond my price point, and most other peoples. But I’m sure Rory could afford to live here if he wanted to. He doesn’t, instead choosing to live in the same slightly shabby area that do.

I’m glad of Peeta’s hand in mine, he keeps getting distracted, staring around him. I pull him closer. “Is it true? Is this what earth looks like?”

He shakes his head. “Not where I’m from. But maybe Greece, or Lebanon.”

It’s all too soon that Rory leads us into a small private chamber announces me by my full name and bows out, closing the door silently behind him.

Rare, pointlessly expensive orchids line the window that overlooks the market districts, their flowers the only hint of decoration in the spartan space.

Seeder is already seated at the desk. Poised to intimidate any unwanted guests. Her blue tailored jumpsuit is a world apart from my baggy beige one, and somehow the cool color brings out the warmer tones in her dark skin. She looks as powerful as ever, even though she’s got to be at least ninety, but extras tend to have long lifespans. If I didn’t know better I’d assume she was perhaps in her late sixties. 

I wonder for a moment if this was the best idea. Then Seeder leans back, the beads in her braids chiming together melodically, her dark eyes roaming over Peeta. “What have you brought me this time?” she asks, sounding unimpressed, but she’s grinning at me.

I have to admit, Peeta doesn’t look very impressive at the moment. He’s only about 5’7” when he stands up straight, and he’s not doing that now. He’s hunching in on himself and refusing to make eye contact. You’d think he was terrified. But while I can feel some anxiety and uncertainty, it’s almost as if he’s just being– submissive?

“This is Peeta Mellark, and he’s my soulmate,” I say. No point hiding that from Seeder. And hey maybe she’ll stop hinting that I marry her grandson already.

Her eyes widen in surprise, and I suppress a smile. Surprising Seeder isn’t something I get to do very often. But this isn’t really the time for feeling smug.

“And also?” I continue, because he’s the least of it. “There’s something very very bad going down that you need to know about.”

——

It doesn’t take long to fill her in about hearing about the huge cargo ship that was ghosted, and me and Haymitch deciding to check it out. Seeder shakes her head at me over that. She is aware that some of what Haymitch and I do isn’t strictly legal, but I don’t usually tell her so bluntly. But I feel like in this situation full disclosure has more value than plausible deniability. Well, mostly full disclosure.

“How were you able to escape?” she asks.

“Because Peeta’s extra,” I say. “He’s as fast as me, possibly faster.”

I determinedly don’t look at him. Seeder’s abilities aren’t empathic, she’s spatial, but that doesn’t mean she’s not gonna read a dodgy reply if I show any sort of tell. Yet for some reason I feel the need to hide the full nature of Peeta’s abilities. Changing form the way he does isn’t something I’ve ever even heard of before, and after what he said before I feel like that’s something that he should get to decide about revealing or not.

“He’s also extraordinary? What type?”

“Agility as far as I saw.” I squeeze his hand. He squeezes back hitting me with a wave of gratitude and relief.

Seeder turns her attention to Peeta, frowning. “You’re an agility type?”

He glances at her briefly before he goes back to staring at the floor. “Ahh, I guess? I’m fast and good at jumping and climbing? I don’t really know. I just thought I was a freak. I didn’t know that you guys existed, or that I could come here?” His voice rises up at the end in a question. He’s not sure if he really is welcome on Aptar.

Seeder chooses to ignore his implicit question, so I squeeze his hand again and try to project welcoming vibes.

Seeder steeples her hands and rests her chin on them , watching us thoughtfully. I feel like I’m ten years old again, and caught in some sort of misbehavior. I know that lightning fast brain of her’s is moving us around like chess pieces in four dimensions. She studies Peeta for a moment before returning her attention to me.

“Why did you cross the plague line? Even for you that seems foolishly reckless.”

The question feels irrelevant, but I know that coming from Seeder it’s anything but. So I consider it for a moment. Yes I’d been interested in what that massive ship could hold, but that wasn’t really the reason.

“I think Peeta was calling me. I felt like I had to go in.”

Seeder nods slowly. She’s been married to her soulmate for about seventy years, so guess she’d know if that’s normal.  
Her eyes going back to Peeta. “And you young man. I don’t believe for a second that it was an accident that you were on that ship. An unknown extra, suddenly appearing in such a volatile situation? Especially since your name isn’t on the manifest as a passenger or crew. What were you doing there?”

Forget wondering how on earth she has access to that sort of information. I gave up asking that a long time ago.  
Peeta mumbles something and hunches into himself even further, but he doesn’t let go of my hand.

“What was that?”

“I’m not at liberty to say ma'am. I’m sorry.” He sounds miserable. I would be too.

“How would I go about getting you permission to talk? I’m assuming you’re not working for the CM.”

Peeta is silent for a moment, considering.

“You might start by contacting Effie Trinket.”

Seeder straightens and swears. She spins in her chair, making the rapid hand motions to open an external channel.

“Out, out, take him away Katniss. But stay in contact and don’t let him leave the station. I will need to talk to both of you again soon.”

I’m not going to stop to question her. The name Peeta gave her obviously means something to her. As we hustle out the door a woman appears on the com screen, blinking and yawning, clearly just been woken from sleep. She looks sort of familiar, like I’ve seen her before, but never registered her as important. She’s blonde with pale skin, perhaps forty or so. “This better be good Seeder, otherwise I’m going to cancel your override priority. It’s not just anyone who is allowed to see me without my face on.”

“Good morning to you too Effie, and perhaps you’d like to tell me why you’re hiding extras from me. Do you want me to tear up our contracts?”

Oh boy. I do not want to be in the vicinity when that level icy death is in Seeder’s voice. I close the door behind me quickly.

Rory is hovering on the other side. I dodge around him, still towing Peeta by the hand. “Seeder is on an important call, probably best not to disturb her,” I say. “You know how to get hold of me if she has any more questions.”

If. What a joke. It’s when and we all know it.

Rory wants to pump me for gossip, but is an hour or two alone with Peeta to just talk so much to ask?

“Do you maybe want to go somewhere and talk? I guess you’ve got questions.” I ask as soon as I’ve managed to shake Rory.

He hesitates for a long moment and I second think everything. Perhaps he wants to get as far away as possible from the crazy woman who drags him around and is just as bad as everyone else trying to stake a claim on him.

“Talking sounds good. And um, sorry, but I’m kinda hungry. Can we get something to eat around here that doesn’t taste like reconstituted cardboard?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have rearranged a few characters, particularly the Hawthorne family. It will make more sense as to why I did that as the story progresses I promise. But for now know that I have always headcannoned the Seam people as being latino, and in this particular story Gale and siblings are mixed race latino/black. Seeder is their maternal grandmother, and also the hereditary leader of Aptar. 
> 
> It's a bit of filler chapter, introducing Aptar Station (I hope you like it!) but action is going to start moving next chapter I promise.


	5. It's a Date

It takes us a while to make it to a restaurant. Peeta can’t seem to resist sampling food from every vendor we pass. 

Luckily it’s not far. The restaurant is one of my favorites. It’s not far from my apartment, and it overlooks a small green zone. It’s multilevel, like everything is on the station, with tiers of agriculture interspersed with leisure spaces. The view from the restaurant's patio looks in on a aquaculture level which can be viewed from the sides and below. I’ve always found watching the fish make their leisurely circuits relaxing. 

Because it’s apparently midmorning, before the lunch rush, we easily find a table on the patio. Grape vines trail overhead, trained from the large pots placed at the base of each column. 

Peeta is still staring around him in amazement. “You’d never guess you were in space.”

I get it, I do, but I selfishly want his attention on me, not on the biome. 

“If you want to find out more I can set you up with a meeting with Vick, he’s another one of Seeder’s grandkids, and he works in ecosystem.”

He stops looking around and turns back to me. Oh. I forgot he can feel my emotions. Maybe because right now his are so genuine. There’s no conflict between inner and outer. He looks awed and impressed, and his emotions are exactly the same.

“Sorry,” he says.

I shake my head. “No, I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot to take in. And I’m happy to show you around and help you learn about whatever you want. It’s just that this might be the only chance we get to talk alone today.”

His face grows serious. “I expect there's a lot you want me to explain.”

“I thought you’d have all the questions for me.”

He reaches across the table and takes my hand and makes the sort of glancing eye contact that I’m starting to find typical. “I need to say something.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you for saving me. I was expecting to die on that ship. You saved me. So no matter what happens next know that you don’t owe me anything. I will never ever force you to do anything you don’t want.”

I almost want to laugh. Surely he can sense from my emotions that despite everything else going down he’s someone I’m happy about? But he’s so serious.

“Don’t worry. I don’t do anything I don’t want to. Besides. You’re, you know, my soulmate. You feel that, right? You’ll know if I’m not happy with something.” Even if he’s not ready to accept it fully, surely he feels it. Right?

Instead he draws back, looking out over the green tiers. “You keep using that term. Is it what you call a betrothed here? I promise I’m not going to hold you to that. I know you said it to save us all.”

I said it to save myself and my family. But semantics.

“You don’t know anything about soulmates?” Even people who resist the idea of a soulmate, or refuse to accept theirs, or even people who don’t believe in it, they know what a soulmate is. Peeta seems entirely oblivious. How do I explain a concept that I’ve never needed explained? It’s like trying to explain what love is. Aren’t you just born knowing?

“It’s not a betrothal. I mean I guess it sort of is, but only if you want it to be.” 

He frowns. 

I’m doing a fabulous job here. I take a deep breath.

“Okay. When you first spoke to me, you asked me if I was real. Why did you say that?”

He tucks his chin into his chest. He doesn’t want to tell me. I reach out and touch his hand, brushing my fingers across his palm. His eyes follow the movement. 

“I’ve been alone for a long time. I mean, I’ve been around people, I have some people I work with sometimes. But I’ve been alone. No real relationships. It’s not something that works for me. But for a while now I’ve had this fantasy.” He ducks his head even lower, his pale cheeks reddening. “A fantasy of a woman. I never had a clear sense of what she looked like, but I knew what she felt like? And I don’t know, sometimes I thought it was just another manifestation of my freakishness, that I had this fantasy woman…”

Oh. OH! I stifle the urge to laugh. “That’s why you asked if I was real. Your fantasy woman is me.”

“Yeah. Sorry.” His face is going scarlett now. He obviously senses my amusement, and is taking it the wrong way. 

I squeeze his hand. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. It’s how it happens sometimes. You were just aware of me before I was you.” And getting himself off to fantasies of me, judging from the swirl of lust and embarrassment he’s feeling. I can’t help smiling now. I’ve grown up hearing so many stories of soulmates gone wrong. People who are already in serious relationships when they find their soulmate. People cheating on their soulmates, people who reject them. And I’ve got me a guy who was apparently faithful to what he thought was a fantasy of me? I should be so lucky.

“I’m sorry you didn’t understand what was going on. But that’s part of how soulmates work. You have this sense of each other, and when you meet, you feel like you already know them. I was a little surprised to find out that my soulmate was an animal. I was pretty relieved when you turned back into a human.”

That gets a smile out of him, and I feel his tension ease a little. “Are you saying that you’re my destiny or something? Because I don’t really believe in that stuff. And that sucks for you to be stuck with a freak like me. Like I said, the last thing I want to do is force you into anything.”

I shake my head, he’s still not getting it. My fault for such bad explanations. 

“It’s not destiny, it’s more like, extraordinary chemistry? At some point we must have been in close enough proximity for ugh, I don’t actually know all the technical stuff? Like pheromones or something? And then our abilities sort of linked up?”

Peeta starts to laugh. “Wait. Are you saying this is all some sort of superpowered lust?”

Now I feel myself flushing. Because ok, I have heard that the soulmate sex is absolutely incredible, which is something to look forward to after the incredibly mediocre experiences I’ve had in that department. But that’s not what soulmates mean.

“It’s not just lust. We’re supposed to be personally compatible too.”

This is not how this is supposed to go. When your soulmate is another extra you both just know. And when they’re an ordinary human you’re supposed to ease them into the concept gradually. No one has explained what to do when you have a completely ignorant extra to deal with.

Instead we’re here wallowing in shared embarrassment. Wow. So fun and sexy. I feel my soul melding with his as we don’t speak.

I look down at the menu. I almost forgot we came here to eat. “Are you ready to order? What do you want?”

He stares blankly at the menu, and I take pity.

“I can just order for you.”

“Sure. Get me whatever is good.”

“Anything particular you do or don’t like? They have a bit of everything here.”

“Nah. Wolves are fairly omnivorous. Just get me two of what you’re getting.”

It’s a relief to let go of his hand and escape. I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to feel about your soulmate.

I step up to the counter and look over the menu on the wall. He said he eats anything, but fried guinea pig might be a little too much. Especially for someone from earth. I’ve heard they keep them as pets down there. Fish also might be iffy, considering the way he was watching the living ones swim around out there.

Rabbit. Rabbit is good. Wolves are famous for eating rabbits, right? And it’s chopped up, so it’s not in a cute animal shape. Did he say to order him 2 meals? He has eaten more than anyone I’ve ever seen in the last twelve hours, so I order two rabbit stew pots with bread and a rabbit stir-fry for some variety.  
I’m perusing the tea menu, wondering how different Peeta’s palate actually is (since he did bring it up) when I sense someone moving in from my left blind spot. Someone who really should know better than to try to sneak up on me. I briefly contemplate taking him to the ground, just for being annoying. 

I don’t. Instead I sigh. 

“Hi Gale.”

I turn and look at him. He looks good. His hair is different. Braided in tight lines against his scalp instead of the looser styles he’s had in the past. It makes him look more mature. Or perhaps it’s just that he’s older. I’ve barely seen him in the last few years.

He moves into me, to hug me, and I hug him back. I have missed him.

“My grandmother told me you were home.”

“Yup.” Although I’m sure he was aware of that as soon as my ship docked. 

Gale’s eyes cut over to Peeta. He’s still sitting on the patio, but he’s carefully not looking this way, although I can sense how intent he suddenly is. I wonder if his senses are enhanced in human form. And what a lovely thought that is. Now I feel like he’s eavesdropping on me. My sort of ex on one hand and my sort of soulmate on the other.

I turn back to Gale. “Did your mom fill you in on what I saw?”

He waves his hand dismissively. “Some sort of viral outbreak. It sounds bad. I doubt it will bother us though.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

The words slip out without any sort of planning, but it suddenly makes sense. This nagging feeling I’ve had. This thing isn’t over, and not in the Peeta’s family showing up and maybe taking him straight back to earth where I’ll never see him again kind of anxiety. 

Gale’s posture goes from lazy leaning to intent in a second. “What do you mean?” He may doubt my judgement in relationships, but he never doubts my instincts, especially in the area where our abilities overlap.

A lot of things snap clear. I grab his hand and tow him back to the table. Peeta stares in surprise.

I wave a hand between them. “Peeta this is Gale, Gale: Peeta. You’ve heard of each other.”

Gale shakes his head, looking Peeta over critically. “I guess so.” He offers his hand to shake. I expect Peeta to get weird and territorial, it’s what Gale would’ve done back in the day. But instead all I feel from him is amusement. None of it shows on his face though. He shakes hands politely, no posturing and they both sit down. 

I lean forward. “Something about those zombie creatures is really bothering me, and I think we need to prepare for the worst.” I look between them, but they’re both nodding.

“I think you’re right,” Peeta says. “Even if I get permission to tell you all I know, it’s not much. Just rumours mostly. But something is going on. And your government should prepare.” 

The fourth chair at the table is dragged out, startling Peeta. Interesting. Somehow I was assuming his perception was similar to mine. Bad assumption to make.

I look over at Annie, my other childhood best friend grinning down at me. She’s got her usual smeared up coveralls on and her brown hair is braided into a crown around the top of her head. There’s a few smears of mysterious origin on her golden cheeks too. She must have come straight from her workshop. She sits down, seeming not to notice the tension between the three of us.

I look back at Gale. “Sorry, did we plan a reunion and I missed the message?”

He shrugs looking a little sheepish. “I told her you were home with a soulmate in tow. Of course she wanted to get a look at him.”

Peeta is starting to shrink into himself again, and I slide my chair a little closer to him so I can take his hand under the table. I look up to find both my old friends watching us. 

“Give me a break guys. I met him what, twelve hours ago? We barely know each other.” I glare at Gale. “And my relationship isn’t the most pressing thing here. We’ve got some sort of plague going on. I really hope someone is strategizing what to do if it gets on this station.”

“When I left mom she was going over quarantine procedures. She’s not stupid.” 

Peeta leans forward, his momentary shyness seemingly forgotten in the face of this more serious turn of conversation. “Quarantine does nothing for this disease. The transmission rate is too rapid. You need to be prepared to lock down this entire place section by section. And there needs to be food stockpiled in every section.”

“What are you talking about,” Annie asks. “What’s going on?”

Peeta looks back at me, slightly alarmed. He’s wondering if he spoke out of turn. I shake my head. Annie may not rank in the political power structure, she’s a jeweler, not a leader, but she’s incredibly trustworthy. 

I look around the patio, empty except for the four of us and a waiter coming toward us with a large tray. Of course Gale does get the fastest service. It’s not even that he acts the part of the young lord. But in a community of this size he is recognised by almost everyone. 

The waiter deposits plates in front of us all, Peeta making a pleased noise as two plates land in front of him.  
“I’ll be right back with your drinks,” she says, and we sit in silence as she hurries back inside and out again with two large jugs. 

“I never did get to order drinks,” I say. I look across at Peeta. “Is this okay or do you want something else?”

He smiles and shakes his head, turning his attention to his food, which he devours with the same rapid speed he had on my ship.

Annie’s eyes widen a little and she gives me a questioning glance. 

“Cut him a break. He was starving to death when I found him.”

Peeta’s eyes pop up and his face pinks with embarrassment. All I do is embarrass him. 

I do not want to go back to that rebounding shame vibe, so I quickly ask him, “What exactly can you tell us about what was going on?”

“Oh!” Gale cuts in. “I forgot. Mom gave me a message. Apparently neither of you have logged on to the server. Peeta’s boss cut a deal.” He nods to him. “You should have some messages waiting for you.”

Peeta’s eyes unfocus and he makes the little head twitch that people with implants do when they access them. I’ve never liked the idea of built in hardware myself, but I guess with his form changes it’s the most practical solution for him. Or perhaps he likes the convenience. Some people do.

I take the ear clip I ‘forgot’ to put on out of my pocket and reluctantly attach it to the upper shell of my ear. I was hoping to be out of contact for a little bit longer, but I guess the date portion of my day is over.

Annie elbows me. “So what’s it like?”

I give her a look. “You don’t even believe in soulmates.” I’ve been subject to her opinions on it at length. How culturally we’ve confused lust with deeper spiritual connection and given up our free will.

“Oh I still don’t. It’s why I’m so curious about you accepting this so willingly.”

It’s not so much I’m accepting it willingly, I’m working from necessity. It’s been a series of fairly linear choices. Save Peeta from the ghost ship or leave him there? Claim him as my betrothed or get our ship blown up? Declare for him to Seeder or leave him to fend for himself? 

So maybe there were other choices I didn’t consider at each of those intersections, but there hasn’t been a lot of room for emotional nuance. Especially when it was life or death. And going forward the options are looking just as linear. I either continue with my claim on him (if he’s willing) and help him gain Aptar citizenship, or I leave him to the mercies of his mysterious boss and the family that actually posted a reward on his head.

There’s not a lot of room for courtship in there. Or doubting the value of soulmates. 

And that’s ignoring the threat of this zombie disease. Like I told the others, my relationship with Peeta is hardly the most pressing issue right now. 

Whether the incredible rightness I feel sitting next to him, his hand curled around mine, is a result of some compatible pheromones or if it means something more, right now I don’t have the brain space to question it. 

If I need to sign some bond papers so be it. I can always get a severance later if it comes to that. It’s a complicated process, but I imagine the shortness of our acquaintance would bear in my favor.

I relax a little, feeling calmer now that I’ve made a decision. 

Peeta surfaces from his trance. “Um, okay, so should I go back and speak to the premier in person? Effie told me to share all the information I have.”

Gale taps his own ear clip. “You can talk to us if you’d rather, and I’ll take notes.” He shrugs a little. “I’m sure she’ll want to talk to you further, but for right now I’m doing apprentice duties.”

Peeta looks around at the still empty patio. I can see through the windows that the restaurant is starting to fill up. “Is this private enough?”

“I used my clout and blocked off the whole patio,” Gale says.

I shake my head at him. “You never used to throw your power around.”

“Hey, this is hardly a casual lunch with friends. If it bothers you we can go to my office or my apartment instead. But this guys looks to be a bottomless pit. I thought he’d be happier with a steady stream of food.”

“I hate your spying ways.” I say. I can’t really fault him for using his abilities. Even if that does involve sitting in a creepy room full of cameras watching every public place on the station. It’s kinda terrifying to see him doing his thing. Mental abilities are like that. But Gale’s are particularly odd to me. My abilities are all about the single person. I can look at a person and know what they’re thinking-- what they want-- by their body language. It’s the same thing that lets me copy their athletic abilities. Gale is clueless one on one. But crowds. He can look at a group and know what the crowd is thinking. Which is disturbing to me on a deep level. Because the crowd isn’t a conscious entity. Gale insists it is. 

“You could just talk to your friends instead of watching them from your spy tower,” I tell him. 

He grins unconcernedly. He knows how much that room creeps me out.

Peeta wiggles uncomfortably in his seat. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“What are you sorry for?”

“Everything. Causing chaos and conflict. Sorry.”

He’s not just saying it. He believes it. I’m not sure how to respond. Why does he feel guilty about everything? 

“Are you kidding?” Gale says. “We’re lucky to have you. Any information you can give us is more points of data.” Yeah. He considers human behavior ‘points of data.’

Annie leans over and pats Peeta on the arm. “So you were following up on rumors? Is that why you were on that ship?”

“Yes. Effie heard some things. She sent me to investigate. I don’t think the outbreak was intentional, but there was something going on that wasn’t quite right. The two might not even be related, although that seems unlikely.”

“What exactly is your job?”

“Effie is like, ahh, like an information broker. I help her find information. I’m valuable to her because of my abilities. I’m sure she’s charging the Premier a nice fee for allowing me to tell you anything.”

Gale grins. “Oh I think there’s a bit more involved than that. Depending on, you know. Developments.”

I glare at him. “Don’t play coy. It’s his life. What’s the deal?”

“It seems our boy here signed full indenture papers, soooo…” 

I can guess the rest. “What about the--?”

“Negotiations are in progress.”

Awesome. So if I don’t marry him then this Effie person has full rights to reclaim him. And most likely sell him back to the family he clearly wants nothing to do with. Even if Effie doesn’t sell him it’s doubtful I’ll ever see him again. After all, she’d have a vested interest in keeping him away from the person with the power to create a more powerful contract.

“And the rest?”

“Not a whisper.”

Damn that all sounds ominous.

“Can you two stop speaking in code?” Peeta puts in sounding annoyed. 

I bite my lip. “Sorry. It sounds like you have a choice here. Marry me or be sold back to your family.” His pale skin blanches, and he looks almost as bloodless as those monstrous creatures I saw on the ghost ship. He startles me by throwing his arms around me and pressing his face against my shoulder. I surprise myself by pulling him closer. I’ve never been much of a hugger. Another feature of my abilities. I can read intentions too well to trust most supposedly affectionate gestures. But with him it’s different. Of all the people that should have an ulterior motive for getting close to me it should be Peeta. He needs me to want him. But he’s not even thinking about that. 

He pulls away after a second. “Sorry,” he says again. 

I’m getting annoyed. “Stop being sorry. I’m going to sign the papers. No one is forcing you back to earth.”

“No! I won’t let you do that!”

Why is he being so dramatic? “You don’t get to let me do anything. I’m telling you. I am going to sign the bond papers. You can refuse, but don’t imagine that you’re saving me from anything. This situation is more important than your hangups!”

I Iook away from him, and see Gale and Annie watching us wide-eyed. Great. 

I push out the chair and get up. “I’m going to the bathroom,” I say, feeling embarrassment overwhelm my brief anger.

Annie follows me into the bathroom and I turn my back to her.

“Are you enjoying the spectacle?” I snap.

“I have to admit it’s entertaining to watch you try to be nice. And fail.”

“I’m nice.”

“Not to strangers you’re not.”

I sigh, turning around. “Is it too much to ask to get a little bit of time to just talk to him? To get to know him? Why does everything have to be so fraught?”

“Well, he is supposed to be your perfect match.”

I start to retort, but there’s something off about her. Her body language is reading odd. She’s been off the whole time, I was just too distracted by Peeta to pay proper attention. Great. Split focus, another wonderful side effect of having a soul mate.

“What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head. “Not now. We’ve got bigger fish to fry. My problems can wait.”

I study her for a few more seconds. She’s unhappy, that’s clear. But if she says it’s not pressing I trust her. 

“It’s probably not a good idea to leave them alone.” she adds. 

It’s a nice excuse to get me to stop prodding her and go back out. 

Although when I step back out onto the patio it seems true. Gale is giving Peeta a look of absolute disgust, and Peeta is radiating anxiety. I slide back into my seat looking between them. 

“What’s going on?” I ask. 

Gale flicks his fingers at Peeta. “This jerk wants to cut his hair off.”

Peeta looks extremely confused. 

“Oh give him a break,” Annie says. “You can’t expect him to understand, he just got here.”

I snicker. Gale, for all he’s the future leader of this station has traveled the least of the three of us, and in some ways doesn’t truly understand that out there there’s different cultures, with different customs. Deep down he’s pretty sure that there is only one right way to do things. 

I nudge Peeta. “If you cut your hair right now, after I’ve publicly declared for you, you’re officially rejecting me. Not just rejecting me. You’re showing that you think I’m too far beneath you to even consider.”

His mouth opens and closes a few times. 

“Don’t even say you’re sorry,” I add before he can speak. I look at Gale. “It’s not your fault if no one explains anything.”

Peeta runs his hand through his hair. “I wasn’t meaning to insult you. Gale has just been trying convince me that I should um, do the bond. I just though I should look a little less scruffy if I’m getting married?”

I pretend that an absolute thrill doesn’t run through me at his words. Or that I don’t feel an echoing ripple of pleasure from him. Yeah. Ignoring that.

I reach for his hair and then hesitate. But he tilts his head a little. So I run my fingers into it. He makes a happy humming noise at my touch and leans into me a little more.

It’s soft and silky, far finer and straighter than my own hair. It’s also shaggy, with no discernable style. “I’ll braid it for you,” I find myself saying. And then I blush. 

His eyes turn on me fully for the first time since he woke up in my arms and I feel a hum of power. “Is that the custom?”

Is it? For a second I can’t remember. 

“It’s supposed to be family or your closest friends,” Annie says. She elbows Gale. “We’ll do it.”

He nods in unconcerned agreement. “Your family will arriving any time now. They’ll probably be more approving if I’m involved. Makes it look less like she’s just a space rat.”

Peeta shakes his head like he’s trying to clear his brain, but Gale doesn’t give him time to collect his thoughts.

“Ok, so bonding sorted. I’ve got my assistant started on the paperwork, it should be ready by tomorrow morning. On to the important part. What’s going on out there, and how does it affect us?”

Peeta starts to speak, but Gale suddenly holds up his hand, and grabs my arm, hauling me out of my chair to the end of the patio, the part that opens onto the street. 

“What do you see?” he demands.

I look at him first, at the way his eyes are flickering over the people flowing past. This isn’t the way my mirroring ability works best, but I can pick up something.

Then I look out over the crowds. Unlike Gale who’s watching the crowd as a whole, I look at individuals. The woman hurrying by is moving a little too fast for the shoes she’s wearing. The little boy is running like he’s out past curfew. The people are hurrying when they shouldn’t be. I can almost feel it. The beat of energy, the pulse of life that Gale says every large group of people seems to give off. If there’s a pulse it’s beating a little too fast, and slightly erratically.

“Something’s wrong,” I say. 

Gale curses. “I was hoping I was just paranoid.” 

“You of all people should know better than to doubt your instincts.” I turn back to Peeta and Annie who are hovering behind us. “We need to go. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is another low action chapter! I promise we are getting back to the zombies!
> 
> But you get to meet Gale and Annie, and get a tiny bit of insight into Peeta's background and his work for Effie.
> 
> Someone asked on the last chapter what Effie could possibly be up to, and I've given a little peek into that here. She's basically turned gossip into her profession, which I think suits her perfectly. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed!


	6. Chapter 6

“Something’s wrong,” I say. 

Gale curses. “I was hoping I was just paranoid.” 

“You of all people should know better than to doubt your instincts.” I turn back to Peeta and Annie who are hovering behind us. “We need to go. Now.”

Peeta’s eyes go huge. “You think there’s zombies here? Now? On the station?”

Do I? I look back out at the crowd. “No, not exactly. But something’s really wrong. And I’d rather be in a more secure location.”

Gale isn’t paying attention, he’s too busy talking on his com and attempting to hustle Annie out of the restaurant. I catch up to them and elbow Gale.

“Where are we going?”

“My office. I need my eyes.”

Yeah. He calls all the screens he has with all the cctv footage on a constant feed his ‘eyes’. And he wonders why I think it’s creepy.

I look back and see Peeta scooping up the tortillas that had been served with the stew. 

“Seriously? Are you worried about food right now?”

“You said no zombies. And these taste handmade!”

I reach out my hand to him. “Come on. Gale will give you the permanent nickname of bottomless pit you know.”

He grins adorably and shoves the rolled bundle into the pocket of his coveralls and then takes my hand to follow me.

“What do you think is going on if it’s not the zombies?” he murmurs as we trail Gale and Annie through the rapidly building crowds. It is lunch time. Crowds are normal. And I have my abilities, plus a couple of the most power extras around at my side. And still. I feel edgy and nervous.

Gale pauses and Annie, too distracted by the fast growing crowd blunders into him. Peeta grabs her arm, steadying her, and she clings to him. I 100% do not feel a stab of jealousy. She’s my best friend. I don't want to see her fall and get potentially trampled by this strange crowd. 

"Is it normally this crowded" Peeta asks, half yelling to be heard. 

"No." Gale turns slowly. “Let’s go to your apartment, and I’ll rig something up there." He turns and starts moving as fast as the crowd allows. His abilities aren’t physical, but he’s trained with the best of them. He’s got good agility for an ordinary.

I look crowd again. “What exactly do you think is going to happen?”

But Gale doesn’t hear me. 

“Violence.” Peeta’s voice is tense. “I think there’s going to be violence. And I sure hope it’s not something that followed me here.”

I want to argue with him, but the noise level is getting ridiculous, and Peeta looks like he’s about to jump out of his skin. 

So I follow Gale back to my place. It’s usually only a few minutes walk, but it takes us more like fifteen, squeezing through the increasingly agitated crowds. I’m already stressing, but I can’t leave them, it’s my palm that opens the door. 

I bought the place a few years ago after a big job left me with a ton of cash. I still mostly live on the ship, but it’s amazing to have a space that just belongs to me whenever I’m on Aptar.

I press my hand to the scanner and the door slides open, and I usher everyone inside. 

The silence inside is deafening after the noisy chaos outside. 

My apartment feels tiny with four people in it. It is tiny, just two rooms. I could’ve gotten more space in a different area, but I chose this because of it’s proximity to the docks and for the wide windows, on one side you can look out into space, and on the other is a view of the marketspace.

But now I have them safely inside I immediately turn to leave. 

“Where are you going?” Gale demands. He goes into my bedroom without asking permission and starts reprograming my wall screen so it acts as mulitple monitors for him to use his eyes.

“Where do you think? My sister isn’t responding to coms. I have to go find her.”

“She’ll be fine as long as she’s at home with the doors locked,” Gale says with the kind of dismissiveness that tells me he’s already been in contact with his family. They’re all probably safely inside the fortress that is the Premier’s central offices.

I ignore him and take a few weapons out of my drawers to strap onto my body.

Peeta stops me with a hand. “I can go. It would be better if I went.”

“You don’t know your way around,” I say, my heart starting to pound. I cannot let anything happen to my sister. “I’ll be faster.”

He shakes his head, and then looks over at Gale who appears to be completely focused on the substandard tech of my two year old wallscreen. 

Peeta drops his head closer and speaks directly into my ear. “If I change I’ll be able to get to her faster than even you can. I’ll just follow my nose. I’ve spent long enough around her to be able to scent her. I can find her wherever she is.”

I shiver at the feeling of his breath against my ear. “You’ll be exposing yourself.” 

“Nah, just distract your friends. Keep them in the bedroom for a minute so I can change, and then I’ll slip out and go get her. Where do you want me to bring her? Here?”

I waver. I don’t like trusting such an important task to someone I’ve barely met, but I can feel his confidence. He’s certain he can accomplish this, and that certainty infects me. I’d just look for her in places I expected. He says he can follow her scent. 

I look back over at Gale and now Annie, who’s he’s got holding screen panels as he fiddles with the innards.

I lead Peeta back into the main room, out of sight of the others. “Get her to the closest safe place. Her place, here, my ship.“ I check in on the locator beacon from my ship. Good.  
It’s been moved to it’s normal berth, which only a few hundred meters from my apartment.

“I’m sending you directional beacons to Prim’s house and my ship’s berth. And here if you need help finding your way back. I checked and you’ve already been added to my ship’s systems so you shouldn’t have a problem getting inside if you need to.” I bite my lip, trying to think of anything else he might need to know.

He takes my hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll find her.”

“Promise me you’ll be careful. I need both of you alive. OK?”

He grins. “Trust me. This is what I do. No one notices a dog.”

“I thought you were a wolf.”

“Yeah, but most station people can’t tell the difference. Don’t worry. If it comes down to it I can rip a person’s throat out before they can draw a weapon.”

I must look, or feel shocked because he hastily adds, “not that I expect it’ll come to that, and you know, I don’t want to, it’s--” he screws his face up in revulsion. I can feel through the bond. The revulsion is for himself. That’s he’s killed that way before. That he’s the monster and now I know about it.

I know it’s the wrong moment, but I can’t seem to help it, I lean into him and gently kiss him. I ignore the mad lust that immediately starts burning through my veins, and step back quickly. I know I’m blushing like teenager that just had her first kiss. 

No actually I don’t think even my first kiss felt like this.

“I’m gonna go distract them. So you can, um, do your thing. Okay? Unless you need me to stay and like, do things that require thumbs, help you get undressed or...”

What am I saying? Did I actually just offer to undress him?

At least he’s blushing too. But he’s also grinning like an idiot. “No, I have that handled. Go deal with them. I’ll get your sister.”

I go join my friends totally not thinking about the guy that’s my soulmate stripping down in the next room. I feel a ripple of odd emotion coming from him. Something like joy tangled with shame and then something that feels… fizzy? He’s changing I guess. Good. I can stop thinking about him naked and actually focus.

I watch the screens over Annie’s shoulder. “Nothing is happening.” 

“It’s building,” Gale says. 

“What is?” She demands. She’s powerful, but her skills are even more out of place here than mine are.

“I don’t know.” Gale shakes his head in frustration, and turns to the window overlooking the square. “Something strange is going on and I have no idea what.”

He focuses back on me. “Why are you still here? I thought you were going to race off to find your sister?”

“You said I didn’t need to.”

He snorts. “Since when do you ever listen to my suggestions?”

Ok he has a point there. “Peeta went for her, we figured it was the best plan.”

He turns and stares. “You’re kidding.”

I shrug feeling exposed. “It was the best plan.”

Annie raises her eyebrows. “It was the best plan to trust your sister’s safety to a guy you just met? What are his exact abilities anyway, do you even know?”

I turn back to the window to avoid looking at them. “Yeah, he’s agility, like me.”

Gale snorts. “No he’s not. Gran might be keeping the details close to the chest, but I know he’s not just an agility. Especially since you’re willing to trust him with your sister. Because I know you’re too smart to be blinded by soulmate lust.”

I’m actually not sure if he’s right on that last one. But he’s spot on with the rest, damn his nosy nature.

“Ok fine, he’s not just an agility, like I’m not just one.”

“So he’s a chameleon too? What are the odds of that?” Gale frowns as if he’s actually trying to calculate the odds.

“No, he’s a little different. I’d rather not talk about it until he’s ready.”

Silence.

“Aren’t we supposed to be figuring out how to prevent a riot or something?” I say. “I mean I know my love life it really fascinating and all but can we stick with the program.”  
Gale turns back to his improvised eyes. “I’m having a problem with it. I can see tension building, and if something doesn’t change we’re going to have some violence out there. But there’s no source.”

“Source?”

“Usually in this kind of situation there’s some sort of inciting incident. A protest march maybe, or a person doing or saying things that set people off. That’s the sort of thing that usually brings this sort of mood on. But today? Nothing. People were going about their day normal and happy and then suddenly, this.” He gestures at the screens. The packed crowds of half an hour ago are easing. But not for the better. Now people are jammed together in fractious groups.

“Could it be a disease? Peeta said that the zombie thing spread fast.” Please don’t let it be that.

Gale shakes his head. “I’ve been looking over the footage for this morning and there’s no vector, no origin point that I can track. Any disease would be spreading from a point of initial infection, and it’s like it began everywhere at once.”

“Environmental systems then?” Annis suggests. “A drug or disease could be delivered everywhere at once that way.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. But my brother has been running every test he can think of. And coming up with nothing. There’s nothing in the air that shouldn’t be. Basically nothing is making half the station look at the other half like they want to kill them.”

“We should ask Peeta what the first stages of the zombie thing looked like,” Annie says.

I tap my com to contact him before I remember that he’s currently a wolf and probably can’t talk right now. “I don’t want to distract him. I’ll ask him when he’s back.”

Annie gives me a look. Yeah she’s totally not buying that, and I will be quizzed later.

I shake my head. “Ok, so we don’t know what’s causing it, but can we do something to prevent things escalating?”

“Yeah yeah, security systems can be activated. The problem is this is a civil liberties issue. Those people out there have rights, and no one has done anything yet. We can’t tranquilize the whole population because of something that might happen.”

Annie and I stare at Gale in shock.

Annie breaks the silence first. “Are you saying you can drug us all into submission anytime you want?”

Gale looks indignant. “Like I just said the ethics of--” he twitches his head. Yay. Important communication.

I use his silence to try to contact Prim again. Still no response.

“No way!” Gale says suddenly.

I jerk my eyes back to him. 

“But Gran…” 

Curious. He’s an expert in using his devices non vocally. For him to start speaking out loud means he’s really not happy with whatever Seeder is telling him.

“Okay, okay. Fine. Bye.”

He turns and glares at me. 

“What did I do?”

“Mess with my life. I just got ordered to escort you and your boytoy to Thestra. Because of course that’s pressingly important with all of this going on.”

“What’s on Thestra?” 

Either this errand it ridiculously important or the situation outside is making Seeder nervous enough that she wants her grandson and heir off station. But even if that’s the reason there must be something there she needs. Seeder is not a woman to waste resources.

“We get to go break your boy’s indenture contract as well as find out what information his boss has on this sort of… phenomena. Also I get to practice my diplomacy.” He scrunches his nose at that. 

He definitely needs to practice his diplomacy. Lucky it’ll be another fifty years or so before he’s in charge.

“But you’re just gonna take off?” Annie asks, confused. “With all this going on?” She waves toward the window. And I look back out. Granted it doesn’t seem like that much is happening, despite the pulse of potential violence in the air.

“Oh you’re coming too. Premier’s orders are that the four of us go.”

That makes even less sense, but Annie shrugs complacently, so I guess she’s fine with it.

My com clicks and Peeta’s voice fills my ear. “Katniss? I have her and we’re headed to your ship. Prim seems to think that you’ll be meeting us there?”

I sigh and shake my head at Gale. “Ok, I guess it’s time for a road trip.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to update! And of course I'm back with a rather dull chapter. But more excitement is ahead, just, not in this chapter.


	7. You bought it you break it.

At least the fractiousness of the crowds means we have an easier time getting to my ship than we had getting to my apartment.

A part of me doesn’t quite believe they’ll be there. That there’s no way that I should’ve trusted my sister’s safety to someone else. What was I thinking? That because he’s my soulmate he’s always going to be reliable? That’s not even what a soulmate is.

Gale was right. I’m acting crazy. 

I chew on that thought as we reach the strangely deserted private docking berths. Of course the maze like area isn’t busy like the cavernous public docking port, but usually there’s people entering and exiting the tunnels hive like tunnels that lead to the various docks. There’s always someone loading or unloading, or doing maintenance.

Not today. It’s as silent as a tomb, without even the heavy humidity from fuel vapor that signals a recent arrival or departure. 

“Spooky,” Annie whispers.

I agree. But I’m hesitant to speak out loud, just in case someone is laying in wait. I’m being paranoid, but paranoia has saved my life too many times. And we can talk once we’re safely on my ship, with the hatch locked behind us.

When I step into the airlock and see Prim and Peeta hovering I can’t stop myself from tearing up. I throw my arms around her and she clings to me. 

:I brought mum, is that ok?:

I look over Prim’s shoulder and see Lizbeth looking incredibly uncomfortable. 

“I’m glad she’s safe,” I whisper. Lizbeth and I may not get along, but she’s my sister’s mother. Of course I want my family safe. And my father with his freelancing sexual activity made Lizbeth a part of my family. She’s not a bad person, but she’s an ordinary, and as much as she tries to accept her daughter’s extraness, she wishes she was normal. And she resents me for being a gateway to it. As if Haymitch wouldn’t have been that crappy dude to scoop her up, take her into space and use up her abilities. I’m the good choice. Lizbeth knows that. And still hates me for it.

And I know that Prim knows all that. It’s very hard to be a liar when your sister can read your mind. It’s excellent at times. 

But geez. Not so excellent when I meet Peeta’s eyes and he’s still… fizzy. And that’s so incredibly hot.

We stand there in a awkward frozen tableau until Haymitch shambles out of the forward sections. He's too cheap to rent more than server space on Aptar. So he lives on the ship full time.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

We all stare at him in disbelief. 

“Do you pay any attention to Station News?” Gale asks. He’s so shocked it would be funny, because of course the news channels are one of his constant Eyes. He can’t imagine not being tuned in.

“Nope. Not interested in politics and crime.”

Haymitch has chosen his Good Old Boy persona. Yay.

Gale rolls his eyes. “Regardless, we have somewhere we need to be. Premiers orders. We need to be on our way immediately. You should have the coordinates and flight path in the computer.”

Haymitch taps his com, and grins at me. “Oh I that’s not all I have.”

I glare at him. “What.”

“Ohhh, it looks like I have a marriage to officiate before we leave Aptar space.”

I just… No. 

I know he is officially the oldest and therefore the head of my family. So if we were to be married on the ship he is the one who would be conducting the ceremony. But no way I want him officiating my bonding. 

“We’ll do it when we get back,” I say. Surely it can wait that long.

“Nope. Gotta do it now. Before we leave Aptarian space. Check your messages.”

I close my eyes and scroll through the backlog of messages I’ve been trying to ignore. And sure enough there’s one from Seeder marked urgent.

I skim it quickly, grinding my teeth with frustration. 

Peeta is at my side immediately. “What’s wrong?” His anxiety is spiking again. Oh man I need some lessons on how to deal with this shared emotions thing.

“Calm down,” I snap, probably a bit more harshly than I need to be.

He steps back, already spiraling from anxiety to guilt.

I rub my hands over my face, and force myself to take a few slow calming breaths.

“We need to get married right now.”

He steps back even further. “Right now? As in immediately? I thought we had a few days at least. What about my parents? What about yours? What about--”

I hold my hand up, stopping the anxious flow of words. I’m acutely conscious of the audience we have, so I grab his hand and pull him into the sanitation room, the only truly private place on the entire ship.

He starts babbling nervously again and I wait for him to run down.

“Calm down,” I say again. This time more gently. 

He stares at me, and for a moment all I can think about is kissing him again. “It was going to happen anyway, right? So what does it matter if we get the paperwork handled now or later?”

He shakes his head. “Gale hasn’t even braided my hair.”

I can’t help laughing at the expression on his face.

“Were you looking forward to that?”

“Not particularly, but that’s not the point! You guys said it would shame or disrespect you or something if I didn’t do it. And now, you’re doing all this for me, it’s not right, I’m ruining your life.”

I start to argue but he cuts me off. “I know what you felt when you got that message. You can’t lie to me.”

I chew my lips feeling our combined anxiety and frustration rise. 

“I really need to get Prim to give us some lessons on how to shield from each other.”

He glares. “So you can lie to me better? Thanks. Sounds like a stellar foundation for marriage. I’m sure we’ll be deliriously happy.”

I can’t help but smile. I like him like this, snarky and confrontational. But we don’t have time to argue. 

I close my eyes, hiding from the focus of those bewitching eyes. “Do you want to go back to earth and never see me again?” I ask, and his emotions rocket all over the place. I catch my breath, suddenly so scared he’s going to say yes. That I’ll never feel anything like this connection again.

“No.” he whispers. “But--”

“There’s no time for but. You know it. If we don’t do something about this situation on Aptar a lot of people will most likely die. If one of us leaves here without those papers properly signed and witnessed then we will be separated and we’ll probably never see each other again. I’m sorry you’re feeling rushed but you have to decide now.”

He scrubs his hands through his hair. “Why are you acting like this is all on me? What do you want?”

“I already told you. I’m signing, and I haven’t changed my mind.”

He steps closer, his eyes boring into mine. “I didn’t what you’re going to do. I want to know what you want.”

Crap. He wants to talk about feelings. I don’t do feelings. Isn’t it enough that he can sense every emotion that rolls through me? But I can see it in his eyes. He needs words.

I scrunch my eyes closed, hiding again. “I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay with me.” I can feel the blush flooding across my neck and up onto my face.   
For a moment it’s as if the entire universe is holding it’s breath. And then I feel the bloom of happiness flooding through him. His hand slips into mine. 

“Okay. I’ll do this. One one condition.”

I open my eyes and study him warily. “Which is?”

“We do a real ceremony later. With all the hair braids and whatever other customs are important. We do it when you love me.”

My head is starting to spin from the quick emotional switches going on here. “When I love you? Awfully confident there.”

He gives me a sidelong look, and okay, when I love him. Yup. Sounds reasonable.

“You gonna make me go through some weird earth rituals too?” I ask, trying to rein in my chaotic emotions.

“Oh for sure. I cannot wait to shove cake in your face.”

He turns and opens the door, leaving me gaping after him. 

Surely he’s kidding. What could cake in the face possibly symbolize?

***

It only takes a few minutes to get everything organized. Gale forwards the paperwork to both of us and we apply our digital imprints. 

And then Haymitch has us stand facing each other holding hands. Somehow only having an audience of four makes it more embarrassing than if we were in front of a crowd of hundreds.

Haymitch mumbles a few words of about love and honor and then has us pledge to share ourselves with each other. 

I’ve attended plenty of bonding ceremonies, but I’ve never realized how intimate those words sound.

“I pledge to share myself with you. In love and honor as a partner and companion, all the days of my life.” Peeta says. And again he’s staring at me with those strange beautiful eyes.

I repeat the words back to him, feeling like I’m hovering on the edge of something truly momentous, but afraid to let myself fall.

“Congratulations!” Haymitch booms, breaking the moment. “You may now symbolize your union with a kiss.”

I roll my eyes at him, and he smirks back. We both know that a kiss isn’t necessary. In fact the ceremony isn’t even that big a deal. It’s the documents being all correctly filled out that makes or breaks this. And we got that done already.

But when I turn back to Peeta I see a flash of hurt in his eyes. And I realize how he must feel. As if I’m too ashamed of him or embarrassed to kiss him in front of my friends and family. 

I press my hand to his cheek and lean in, letting him close the final distance on his own terms. 

For a second he hesitates, but then his mouth is on me, and I’m so glad we got that first kiss out of the way in my apartment. Because this time I’m able to brace myself for the ridiculous surge of tangled lust and affection. 

He takes his time, this is no obligatory peck. When he finally pulls back I feel… claimed. Something inhuman flashes in his eyes. And I can’t help remembering that for all his blushes and uncertainty he is a wolf. And I’ve just pledged myself to him.

Haymitch clears his throat loudly. “Well then. That’s that.” He’s looking anywhere but at me. And I try to hold back a laugh. We’ve embarrassed him. I didn’t think that was possible. 

I look around at everyone else, and they’re all shuffling their feet and looking at the wall panels. Except Prim who’s staring at me wide eyed.

Haymitch claps his hands, making Peeta jump. “Alright then. We’ve got a few hours until we reach Thestra. Try to keep it down.”

And they all rush out into the forward compartments, closing the hatch behind them, leaving me and Peeta staring at each other.

This may be the most embarrassing thing that’s every happened to me.

“I don’t expect... I mean we don’t have to… this isn’t…” Peeta stammers, swinging from intense sexy wolf back to what seems to his base level uncertainty.

I hold up my hand, stopping his rambling. “I’m not having sex with you.” I say. He hunches in on himself a little and starts to back away. 

I reach out to him, pulling him back, leaning into him. “I want to, you have to sense that. But…”

“Yeah,” he sighs, wrapping his arms around me. “I get it. Not the time or place.”

I stand there for a moment, soaking in the feeling of utter contentment that being close to him brings me.

I glance over at the single bunk, a narrow slot cut into the wall panels. “But since they’ve all so nicely decided to give us some privacy, I wouldn’t say no to taking a nap with you.”

It takes us a few minutes to get comfortably situated in the space that’s almost too small for one person. But the walls are down now, and neither of us seems to have any problems clambering all over each other until we’ve managed to slot together in a way that feels safe and comfortable.

“Did you know that wolves bond with their potential mates by sleeping curled together and grooming each other.”

“Is this your way of asking me to braid your hair?”

He makes a humming noise against my neck, sending shivers over my skin.

“Sleep first. Braids later.”

He hums again, and then just like that he’s asleep. Wow. 

I lie awake a little longer. I know I have no right to feel this good, not with the fate of Aptar potentially hanging in the balance. But what would being unhappy do for anyone right now? I close my eyes willing my brain to shut off.

Blue eyes that can see into my soul follow me into my dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought you were getting any sort of resolution here you were sadly mistaken (cue evil laughter).  
> Onward to Thestra. What and who do you think we'll be finding there?

**Author's Note:**

> who doesn't like zombies in space, with a little bit of soulmate bonds thrown in for good measure!


End file.
